Alfred William Garret, Wiliam Alexander MacFarlane and Gerard Manley Hopkins
Photo taken by Thomas Bayfield at Oxford

Gerard Manley Hopkins who is credited with the invention of Sprung Rhythm was born in 1844. He was the son of a poet and apparently could have been almost anything he wanted. One of those gifted young men, the oldest of nine children he attended grammar school in Highgate and won a scholarship to Bailliol College, Oxford. He graduated as its star. Having been tutored in drawing and painting as well as music, at university he opted for poetry. He was almost surely a manic/depressive personality with a strong Anglican faith. Seeking for “authenticity”, he converted to Roman Catholicism under the influence of Cardinal Newman who had famously converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism.

Becoming very devout, he took Holy Orders, and became a Jesuit Priest. Early on Hopkins (having read Thomas Acquinas) decided that it was distracting, and possibly sinful to carry on with his poetry. He burned all his early poetry and didn’t write again for seven years. After reading Dun Scotus in 1872, he changed his mind and began writing again. He studied Old English and having moved to Wales learned Welsh.

Gerard Manley Hopkins – WikiCommons

In 1874, he wrote a poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland, about a shipwreck that had killed five German nuns who had been persecuted. This was the initial use of his new theory about poetry, Sprung Rhythm. By not limiting the number of “slack” or unaccented syllables, Hopkins allowed for more flexibility in his lines and created new acoustic possibilities.  In this meter of poetry, rhythm is based on the number of stressed syllables in a verse without regard to the number of unstressed syllables.

Put another way, sprung rhythm may be said to designate the meter of a verse which contains feet of varying number of syllables, with the first syllable accented in each case.  The feet possible are the monosyllabic (a single stressed syllable), the trochee, the dactyl, and  the spondee. The obvious result of a line composed of combinations of such varying feet is extreme metrical irregularity.  The scansion of such poetry is, as W. B. Yeats noted, difficult because “it may not be certain at first glance where the stress falls”. The Poetic foot may continue to the beginning of the next line is noted in almost all the information concerning this technique.

When considering how to write it for myself, I more or less disregarded the concept of foot altogether. I believe the way to approach sprung rhythm is to consider only the number of stressed syllables per line. Choosing a number like four or five (both of which are common to English speech patterns) and employing that many per line seems to work. For the most part, I think lines begin and end with stressed syllables; however Hopkins liked the idea of enjambment rather than end-stopped lines. In such cases if the end syllable is stressed the following syllables at the beginning of the next line may be unstressed to keep the “spring” in the text continuing.

The Encyclopedia Britannica defines sprung rhythm as “an irregular system of prosody developed by the 19th-century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is based on the number of stressed syllables in a line and permits an indeterminate number of unstressed syllables. In sprung rhythm, a foot may be composed of from one to four syllables. (In regular English metres, a foot consists of two or three syllables.) Because stressed syllables often occur sequentially in this patterning rather than in alternation with unstressed syllables, the rhythm is said to be “sprung.” Hopkins claimed to be only the theoretician, not the inventor, of sprung rhythm.”

In addition to developing new rhythmic effects, Hopkins was also very interested in ways of rejuvenating poetic language. He regularly placed familiar words into new and surprising contexts. He also often employed compound and unusual word combinations, interjections, assonance and alliteration giving his poems counterpoint in musical terms. As he was both an artist and a musician as well as a poet, his poetry has color, texture and musicality that he would likely argue was present in English from its inception. He found that music in the rhythms of Irish and Welsh speech, in nursery rhymes, and the texts of Old English manuscripts.

I think to write using this technique is to listen to one’s own personal music. As it’s difficult to scan, there is no “right or wrong” in using this technique. It’s another tool in finding one’s personal voice using English words and rhythms as the music of poetry. I am including Pied Beauty, one of his more famous poems in a proposed scansion.

Pied Beauty – WikiCommons

|Glory|be to|God for|dappled|things—
For|skies of|couple-|colour as a|brinded|cow;
For|rose-moles|all in|stipple upon|trout that|swim;
Fresh-|firecoal|chestnut-|falls;|finches’|wings;
|Landscape|plotted and|pieced—fold,|fallow, and|plough;
And|all|trades, their|gear and|tackle and|trim.

|All things|counter, o|riginal,|spare,|strange;
What|ever is|fickle,|freckled|(who knows|how?)
With|swift,|slow; sweet,|sour; a|dazzle,|dim;
He|fathers-|forth whose|beauty is|past|change:
|Praise|him.|

If there is a “challenge” today, it is to take this springing of stresses and use it in a poem of your own. Feel free to link below and share it; or in the comments, share your thoughts on its use.

Welcome to Open Link Night!! You may not remember me. I’m Joe Hesch and I’ll be your jet-lagged bartender tonight.

For whatever reason, I have been a poor colleague for the past handful of Open Link Nights. Lots of reasons, none of them particularly sexy. I’m not on the poetic wagon or anything. But each week I felt guilty as hell for not visiting all of you lovely folks, the rookie and experienced, old friend and first-time linker. For that, I most sincerely apologize.

But here’s a lesson in what may happen, if you wish to really rub elbows with some of the brave and shy poets here at the Pub–you make connections. I know, that sounds so much like “hooking up,” a phrase this geezer can’t get used to.

I mean connections in an artistic and maybe even business sense, which can be a big deal if you plan on taking your work to a next level, as so many here have.

If you want to, and you’re really, really lucky, you make friends here beyond the name under the title of a poem or attached to a comment. The avatar on a site becomes a flesh-and-blood smiling face and a person that extends a welcoming hand, gives you a real live squishy hug, or kisses your cheek.

That’s what just happened to me. Yesterday, I returned from meeting in London (the one with the big clock) with six of eight poet friends with whom I am assembling an anthology for publication. You’ll recognize most if not all of them, the poet members of the Grass Roots Poetry Group (GRPG).

Absent, but sorely missed, from the gathering were the wonderful Jacqueline Dick (@fumanchucat) and Marsha Berry (@Marousia). Invading Covent Garden and Buckingham Palace with me were John Anstie (@poetjanstie), Shan Ellis (@Awdures), Quirina Roode-Gutzmer (@denfemte), Abigail Baker (@The_Linnet), Peter Wilkin (@peterwilkin1), and my dearest friend and partner Louise Hastings (@LouiseJHastings).

Okay, lot’s of personal stuff for an Open Link Night intro. But the message is that’s the power of artistic fellowship and collegiality (most-powerfully espoused by my lovely friend Natasha Head) available around the Pub. And if you wish to sit alone and comment or not, that’s cool, too. We serve all who enter these virtual doors. And we listen, too…

Here’s how you can get your drink on:

• Post a poem to your blog,
• Link your poem to dVerse (1 per blog, please) by clicking on the Mr. Linky button below.
• This opens a new screen where you’ll enter your information, and where you also choose links to read. Once you have pasted your poem’s blog URL and entered your name, click Submit. Don’t worry if you don’t see your name right away.
• Don’t forget to let your readers know where you’re linking up and encourage them to participate by including a link to dVerse in your blog post.
• Visit as many other poems as you like or can, commenting as you like or can, as well.
• Spread the word on the poems you enjoy if you’d like. Feel free to tweet and share on the social media of your choice.

After last week, Joy left the place spotless. Let’s mess it up with a bacchanalian binge of verse. I have some making up to do so clean-up will will be suitable penance.

For my fellow Americans and I, yesterday was a Sunday spent honoring the very people that bring us into the world: mothers. Commercialized as it has been (not unusual for a holiday I reckon, no?), the core concept is a sound one, for who better to honor than those that must put up with so much from us wee folk?

And especially us poets. Emotional roller-coaster rides we are, be it through childhood or after.

That said, while the pub’s doors were closed yesterday, in lieu of the usual hubbub of the bullfights today we’re going to be having a little informal celebration of mothers through our own, poetic brand of things. No history lessons. No lamenting of lives lived and lost and poems forgotten to the waves of time. Today, the bar’s taking a breather for family.

The piece to mark the occasion? “In Memory of My Mother,” by Patrick Kavanagh.

~Chris Galford

photo by Scott Woods-Fehr

Maurice Sendak invented monsters, in every sense of the word. It’s easy to look at Where The Wild Things Are and instantly point out the creatures on the island as the monsters of the piece, but how many would also say the same about Max? Maurice Sendak didn’t like ‘good boys’, he preferred to show children as they actually were, sometimes sweet and innocent, sometimes as mischievous and frightening as the beasts of the story themselves.

Sadly, Maurice Sendak  passed away this week due to complications from a stroke. The provider of dreams (and occasional nightmares) for children everywhere Maurice never had children himself, though that never stopped him understanding kids, perhaps better than many children understand themselves. “I am trying to draw the way children feel” he once told the New Yorker, as if the perception of childhood was less relevant than magic of it, the feeling that as a child anything can and – if you use your imagination – eventually will happen.

image by Scott Woods-Fehr

Sendak was extremel personable and did his utmost to interact with every letter received from a child, he admitted that sometimes he answered hastily but in this day and age where celebrities and public figures often only interact to chosen tweets a hastily written response would be impressive. His favourite letter ever received was actually from a parent though: “[A little boy] sent me a charming card with a little drawing. I loved it… I sent him a postcard and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, ‘Dear Jim, I loved your card.’ Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, ‘Jim loved your card so much he ate it.’ That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

That to me sums up the beauty of what Maurice wanted to capture, the way children see the world in a very different manner. They don’t see a one-off drawing, they see food. They don’t see a fight, they see a Wild Rumpus. They don’t see a wolf costume, they see the ability to become a wolf. I don’t know the age imagination declines, but I have a theory that it may just be the age at which you stop reading Where The Wild Things Are and move onto something a bit ‘older’.

So, to the writing! Please write about anything Maurice Sendak related. Be it his books, any memories you have of his words or images, his personal life or even putting yourself into one of his stories. Or maybe even try to see the world as a child may see it.

What are we waiting for? LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN!

How we do this:

• Write a poem and post it to your blog.
• Click the Mr. Linky button below, and in the new window that opens up input your name and direct URL of the poem.
• Visit other people’s poems and comment to let them know that poems are being read.
• Share via your favourite social network(s).
• Have fun!

It’s often thought that machines and technology have fascinated and ruled the lives of humans for millennia. After all, we are the tool-making animals, as some scientists would say. And our fascination with techno gadgets from computers to cell phones to TV have accustomed us to the idea that humans throughout history have had such a passion for gadgets as we have. History, however, shows that modern technology, with its counterpart in capitalism, has created a unique phase in human history.

The presence of sophisticated machinery, on the level of modern technology, was once believed to be only a modern phenomenon. Indeed, except as toys or playthings, many ancient cultures simply did not have the type of technological expertise as our society does. However, the discovery of the instrument shown below in Greece shows that the Greeks were capable of sophisticated technological apparatuses. The Antikythera is, in many ways, comparable to a computer in complexity of design as well as operation.

No matter how marvelous such a machine is, nothing in previous human history equals the role that machines play in modern society. As many have said, in today’s world, the machine shapes us as much as we shape it. One has only to look at Science Fiction, filled with images of half-human, half-machine, beings to see how powerfully machines and technology have infiltrated the imagination, not to mention our lives.

Depending on your philosophical assumptions, perhaps, this could be a good or bad thing. Certainly, with the rise of capitalism along with technology, we see in western culture various reactions to the way that machines enter our lives. I spoke of the English Romantics last time; in this sphere as well, the Romantics led the reaction to the abuses and devastation inherent in industrialization. Many of you will recall William Blake’s poem about the “dark satanic mills,”

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Technology and poetry kind of dismissed each other after the Romantics, though Realism in prose and drama undertook the theme seriously. Things moved more quickly in America near the end of the 19th century. Walt Whitman’s paeon to a Locomotive heralded a new understanding of the machine and its place in our lives. Celebrating quickness, power, and ability to shorten vast distance, Whitman becomes ecstatic in his tribute to modern technological advances.

Roll through my chant with all thy lawless music,thy swinging lamps at night,
Thy madly-whistled laughter, echoing, rumbling like an earthquake, rousing all,
Law of thyself complete, thine old track firmly holding,
(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)
Thy trills and shrieks by rocks and hills return’d,
Launch’d o’er the praries wide, across the lakes,
To the free skies unpent and glad and strong.

Whitman’s spirit portended a growing trend in Europe as it embraced the machine as well. The Italian arts movement of Futurism celebrated the rise and spread of modern technology. The movement had acolytes in many European countries and arts, including France and Russia. And two opposing camps in the arts took shape: those who wished to embrace the modern technological advances and those who feared many of the consequences.

But there was also anguish about where technology was leading humans, and this anguish was voiced by the German Expressionists in poetry, painting and cinema. The image of the evil cyborg first arose in German Expressionism, and actually coined the term for these machines, “robots,” in the play RUR by Hungarian Karel Capek. The following clip form the German Expressionist film, Metropolis, exhibits both the attraction and repulsion that many felt towards machines and technology. Unfortunately, World War I seemed to bear out many of these misgivings.

In America, however, the love affair with the machine continued and grew unabated. It used to be said of American males, for example, that they often love their car as much as their mates. The following poem by ee cummings expresses this sentiment with much glee and charming inventiveness.

She being brand

-new; and you
know consequently a
little stiff I was
careful of her and (having

thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.) I went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up, slipped the
clutch (and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell) next
minute I was back in neutral tried and
again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. Ing (my

lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightening) just as we turned the corner of divinity

avenue I touched the accelerator and give

her the juice, good

(it
was the first ride and I belive i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens I slammed on
the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and
brought allof her tremB
-ling
to a:dead

Stand-
;still)

ee cummings, she being brand new

Of course, this is not the only issue alive in the question about machines and how humans will continue to evolve in tandem with machines. While I mentioned it at the beginning of this article, with the rise of the machine came the rise of capitalism. Which came first is still a question of hot debate. And the political questions fall outside the parameters of this piece.

In this week’s prompt, write a poem that references in some way the technological or machine spirit of our time. To accomplish this, you might

• tackle the big question about technology and its effects on our world
• write a poem about what machines you use in your job
• engage in poetic conflict with the technological world-view

Cool? Then let’s get it on. Here’s how it works:

• Post a poem based on tonight’s theme to your blog.
• Link in the poem you’d like to share by clicking on the Mr.Linky button just below.
• This opens a new screen where you’ll enter your information, and where you also choose links to read. Once you have pasted your poem’s blog url and entered your name, simply click Submit.
• Don’t forget to let your readers know where you’re linking up and encourage them to participate by including a link to dVerse in your blog post.
• Visit as many other poems as you like, commenting as you see fit. Chances are if you comment on others they will comment on you. Funny how that works.
• Remember, we’re here for each other. Engage your fellow poets, talk, chat, comment, let them know their work is being read, and enjoy the input you also will receive. Feel free to tweet and share on the social media of your choice.

Finally, enjoy–this is poetry alive.

*Antikythera, Locutus, Dynamism, and Muscle Car images from the Wikimedia Commons. Commons is a freely licensed media file repository.

Welcome all. Hedgewitch (Joy Ann Jones) here, to host another weekly session of poetic jubliance and summer madness here at the pub. I say summer madness, because it seems awfully early for it to be this summery, yet the feeling is just in the air, at least in my part of the U.S. where Spring came almost a month early this year. I don’t consider it Summer till the roses bloom, but they’ve been in full flower for several weeks, and in fact are almost finished, when usually they are just beginning by Mother’s Day.

So I say ‘Happy Summer’ to all, even if in your area it’s not quite there yet, or even if it’s a different season, because Summer is a state of mind, a time for freedom from care and enjoying life. It’s also a time for sharing quality time with friends and family, and we’re in the perfect spot to begin all that here at the pub, where this community is a friend and family to poets of every stripe.

Tuesday’s Open Link Night, where any poet can link any poem on any subject,  is our most popular feature, but as many of you know, it’s not the only specialty item this place turns out. We are open seven days a week, and try to keep the menu tasty every day. We’ve recently had the great good fortune to add some new and talented staff members to give us even more dimension in the area of our other prompts and features, so I thought I’d give them all a shout out, and run the schedule down for new patrons.

On Mondays, the erudite and articulate Chris Galford brings us a look at a different classic poet and poem every week, some familiar, some obscure, from many languages and cultures, in a feature called Pretzels and Bullfights. This is some fun reading, from which I always learn something, and you don’t even have to write a poem, just read some of the best out there.

On Thursdays, we alternate two themed link-in spotlights on the craft of poetry. One is called Form For All, and focuses on the various poetic forms through which we can express ourselves as writers. Samuel Peralta joins Gay Cannon for this feature. Even if you’re strictly a free verse writer, you can usually find something new and interesting to appreciate and learn at these sessions. The other Thursday attraction is called Meeting the Bar, and is all about the nuts and bolts of writing, of challenging ourselves to improve in various ways through experiment and sharing among peers. Charles Miller(the Chazinator) has joined Victoria Ceretto-Slotto to cover those bases in a creative, innovative and interesting way. Both of these platforms include specific prompts which challenge us to write.

Saturdays at the pub starts the weekend off with Poetics, where an alternating team presents various challenges ranging from a word or a concept to specific art or photography to get the creative juices flowing. The two geniuses behind this joint, Brian Miller and Claudia Schoenfeld, have been joined by some new geniuses, Stu McPherson and Karin Gustafson, to come up with a wide range of subjects and starting points to write from that are open-ended but always combine enjoyment  with depth.

To give everyone an opportunity to participate regardless of time zone and country, all these features go live at the same time, 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, and last till midnight of the following day. We hope you’ll investigate and dive in to what suits you if you’ve yet to do so, and enjoy the huge level of support and encouragement that is a hallmark of our participating poets, writers, and team members.

I’ll leave everyone with this very seasonal, short-sleeved summer shirt of a  poem from Carl Sandburg :

Back Yard
by Carl Sandburg

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.

An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion.
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month;
to-night they are throwing you kisses.

An old man next door is dreaming over a sheen that sits in a
cherry tree in his back yard.

The clocks say I must go—I stay here sitting on the back porch drinking
white thoughts you rain down.

Shine on, O moon,
Shake out more and more silver changes.

~From The Chicago Poems (Henry Holt and Company, 1916) by Carl Sandburg.

Once again, a happy Summer to all, and I look forward to all the poetic barbeque and pool parties we can handle here at the pub till Fall rings the season out.

Now lets get down to the poetry. If you are new to the pub, here’s the way our link-in works:

Post a poem to your blog,

• Link in the poem you’d like to share (1 per blog, please) by clicking on the Mr.Linky button just below.
• This opens a new screen where you’ll enter your information, and where you also choose links to read. Once you have pasted your poem’s blog url and entered your name, simply click submit.
• Don’t forget to let your readers know where you’re linking up and encourage them to participate by including a link to dVerse in your blog post.
• Visit as many other poems as you like, commenting  as you see fit.
• Spread the word. Feel free to tweet and share on the social media of your choice.
• Finally, enjoy! Remember, we are here for each other. Engage your fellow poets, talk, chat, comment, let them know their work is being read, and enjoy the input you also will receive. This is all about community.

Herman Gorter (Image credit: Wikipedia)

Today, Herman Gorter is a name scarcely remembered outside the bounds of his own fair country. Even there in the Netherlands, the words that remain of his character are those of the epic poem, Mei (a powerful poem of 4,000 lines today viewed by many as the very height of Dutch Impressionism), which has since been assigned as the practical anthem of the movement to which much of this writer’s life was dedicated.

As you might have gathered, Gorter was a Dutch poet. He was also a revolutionary–a fact that, admittedly, factored rather heavily into a number of his works. He was a socialist, though an opponent of Lenin. He survived the first World War, and was a member of a group known as the Tachtigers–influential Dutch writers dedicated to the revival of literature’s prominence in their country, in the face of the powerhouse that was English and French writers of the time.

Though I think posting a 4,000-line poem would probably be overdoing it a bit here, I offer to you another sampling of his work, a piece known simply by its first line: “Oh, the cool black breath of the nighttime draws near…” I also have the pleasure to be able to offer up the original version as well, for those of you capable of comparing the translation to the power of the predecessor…

~Chris Galford

Oh, the cool black breath of the nighttime draws near,
brings pitchers of quiet-flowing wine-black here,
brushing mourning fingers too softly to hear -
comes and revives my poor languishing dear.
You see the sparkling and deep red
wine juice fall from the jug, red and gold,
right through the night black and drear,
that is the gloomy red old
exhumed bleeding dead
wine in the night’s hand hither brought.
O my loved one let us toast
the red together like yawls off the coast
wander homeward when the catch is in –
together sinking where dark’s most
deep, mid the houses’ dark resonant host
as if aping our steps within.
Those houses are full nonetheless
silent lightfolk make each other guess
words and silently laugh –
we walk together bathing through the dark recess
brimful of the dark seeds to excess
joy that will soon outgrow the chaff.

Calm yellow gazes of people spying
at the windows and starting to grimace
at us two stumbling on our way –
whores round corners their mouths all sighing
leer, men’s backs surge along in the race
of the gold-lined street stream’s spray.

Our closed eyes go –
past our eyes the waves go,
dark sky –
we are two fishes that will inhabit
deep-dug black sea caves
with no cry.

In the black city
in the coal-black city
in the city with metal root,
I’ve filled a room with soot
black – and red with desire,
within burns yellow fire.

The empty walls surround,
fallen velvet, and around
the silent folds joyously play –
then rush upon their way
through the red gold lights –
we’re amazed at these sights –
and walk on sighing.

Like blunted houses with lighted panes,
in which lightning blazes
so are our walls there –
like great women with falling hair
each corner stands up and retains
the room’s soft muffled planes.
There we stand and keep still,
we touch with a shuddering thrill
and look around us –
there’s a buzz in us,
far outside the city buzzes too
with drear, dull hue.

But great flame flowers are about to start
to sway in your hands with love in their heart –
your hair rises like a flame,
your cheeks flow with fire, and perspire –
oh let it be consumed in me
that blazing rationality.

~ Herman Gorter, Translated by Paul Vincent

O koele zwarte ademen van den nacht,
stil vlietende kannen van wijnzwart gebracht
in haar rouwvingeren slepend zoo zacht –
gaat lavende tot waar mijn liefste wacht.
Ziet ge het flonkerend zware roode
wijnvocht de kan uit, de roodgoude,
vallen dwars door den zwarten nacht,
dat is de sombere roode oude
opgegravene bloedenddoode
wijn in de nachthand hier gebracht.
O mijn liefste laten we drinken
samen het rood, als zeeëpinken
dwalen naar huis die de vischvangst doen –
samen diep door het duister zinken
tusschen de huizen die donker weerklinken
of ze binnen ons stappen nadoen.
Die huizen die zijn wel volgeladen
stille lichtmenschen die zich te raden
woorden geven en lachen stil –
wij loopen saam door het duister te baden
boordevol vol van de donkere zaden
vreugde die straks hoog groeien wil.

Geele gelaten kijken van menschen
achter de ramen en gaan dan grijnzen
om ons tweeën die strompelen voort –
hoeren om hoeken den mond vol wenschen
loeren, en ruggen van mannen deinzen
mee in de straatstroom goudgeboord.

Onze gesloten oogen gaan –
langs onze oogen de golven gaan,
duistere lucht –
wij zijn twee visschen die gaan bewonen
diepgegraven zwarte zeeholen
zonder gerucht.

In de zwarte stad
in de steenkole stad
in de stad gestegen van metaal,
daar heb ik een zaal
zwart gebrand – rood van minne,
daar brandt geel licht van binnen.

De leege wanden staan rondom,
gevallen fluweel, daar vouwen zich om
de stille plooien verrukkend –
dan gaan daar rukkend
de roodgouden lichten door –
wij oogend staan daarvoor –
en wandelen zuchtend.

Als stompe huizen gelicht geraamd,
waar het weerlicht in vlamt
zoo zijn onze wanden daar –
als groote vrouwen met vallend haar
staan de hoeken omhoog en houden verzaamd
het zachtfloerse zaalgeraamt.
Daar staan we en houden stil,
we raken elkaar met geril
en kijken al rondom ons –
in ons is gegons,
ver buiten gonst ook de stad
somber en mat.

Maar groote vlambloemen gaan beginnen
in uwe handen te wieglen van minne –
uw haren rijzen als een vlam,
uw wangen zijn vuurvloeiend, lichtklam –
o doe in mij vergaan
dat vlammend beraan.

For this week’s poetics I’d like to focus on a subject very close to my heart… that of music.

For me, music is perhaps one of the deepest and most resonate forms of human expression. Not only does it contain the ‘POETIC’ element in terms of lyricism, but there is something else, something intangible and something profoundly emotional.

Pablo Picasso- ‘The Old Guitarist’ 1903 Public Domain Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

Music can contain passion. It can be definitive in terms of culture. It can be used as vehicle for self-belonging, act as a signpost, a reminder of our pasts (albeit bad or good), it can be an emotional crutch, it can be an all-encompassing representation of the human spirit, our lives, our loves, and our thoughts…OR… it can simply be a collection of noises and notes that we do or don’t respond to.

Throughout history music has always been a subject of artistic concentration. Take for example Pablo Picasso’s ‘The Old Guitarist’ 1903. The main theme of this picture, painted in Picasso’s ‘Blue Period’, shows a man seemingly clinging on to life, maybe even in misery or loneliness. The guitar itself becomes the focal point of the picture and becomes the old man’s only focus, his love; purpose and his only means of expression. Poetically, maybe this picture speaks of our need as artists, to simply express and that expression sits at our very core.

Music has also proven to be a dominant image within the photographic arts. Here, I’d like to draw your attention to the photographs of Glen E. Friedman (a personal favourite of mine) who has captured the passion, the fury, and the intensity of the Punk Rock/Hip Hop scenes across the word, but particularly in the US.

Photograph of Fugazi courtesy of Glenn E Friedman www.burningflags.com/books

Here the image shows the intensity of the artists, the energy of the stage, and the closeness between the performers and the observers. The photograph can be seen as a metaphor for some of the ideologies of music (and particularly within punk rock subculture) – with the absence of a barrier between the stage and the crowd showing music’s transcendence, its ability to be owned and shared by ALL; its lack of hierarchy and therefore a common shared value – very much like some of the messages and ideologies contained within Poetry (which in itself could be regarded as a subculture)

And finally lets us observe a more ‘poetic’ relationship. For this example I’d like to present a poem by Anne Sexton (1928-1974)

‘Music Swims Back to Me’

Wait Mister. Which way is home?
They turned the light out
and the dark is moving in the corner.
There are no sign posts in this room,
four ladies, over eighty,
in diapers every one of them.
La la la, Oh music swims back to me
and I can feel the tune they played
the night they left me
in this private institution on a hill.

Imagine it. A radio playing
and everyone here was crazy.
I liked it and danced in a circle.
Music pours over the sense
and in a funny way
music sees more than I.
I mean it remembers better;
remembers the first night here.
It was the strangled cold of November;
even the stars were strapped in the sky
and that moon too bright
forking through the bars to stick me
with a singing in the head.
I have forgotten all the rest.

They lock me in this chair at eight a.m.
and there are no signs to tell the way,
just the radio beating to itself
and the song that remembers
more than I. Oh, la la la,
this music swims back to me.
The night I came I danced a circle
and was not afraid.
Mister?

Here Sexton presents us with music as a reminder; a constant in a mad world (Sexton often wrote about her struggles with mental illness, often spending time in hospital herself). Observe the lines- ‘Music pours over the sense/and in a funny way/music sees more than I’.  Here she talks about the music seeing all of her surroundings, the other patients, the nurses, the moon in the sky, even herself, and is very much used as a constant to anchor all of these things together.

I would urge you all to check out the respective artists above if you haven’t already!

OK, let’s get to it!

For this week’s prompt write a poem about music. Please feel free to interpret it as openly as you like.

You could write a piece about your favourite song (and how it makes you feel), a particular style of music, an instrument, a time and place that you remember through a certain piece of music, why music is important to you, or simply how music makes you feel in general…this is WIDE open….

SO- let’s go for it…let’s build our OWN poetics jukebox.

Here’s how it works

• Write a poem and post it to your blog
• Click the Mr. Linky button below, and in the new window that opens up input your name and direct URL of the poem
• Visit other people’s poems and comment to let them know that poems are being read!
• Feel free to share via your favourite social media!
• Above all- have fun,

See you out on the road.

By Stuart McPherson (www.poemsofhateandhope.com)

Or at least that was what this poet claimed, during his years in an asylum in Essex, in the mid-1800s. “I’m John Clare now,” he claimed to a newspaper editor, “I was Byron and Shakespeare formerly.”

Title Page, Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Wikimedia Commons).

Despite this setback – which bedevilled him in the latter part of his life – John Clare’s reputation has grown throughout the 20th century.

Because of his peasant background, his naturalistic influence went beyond the Romantics – besides love poems and political commentary, he wrote about the natural environment, folk life, and the rural world. And yet, his works also showed a linguistic capability and philosophical depth equal to any of his contemporaries.

History now accords Clare the distinction of being, alongside Wordsworth, one of the most influential practitioners of classic poetical style. He is now regarded as the most important naturalistic poet of his generation.

John Clare was born in 1793 to a peasant family in Helpston, Northamptonshire. While he did learn basic reading and writing, his family’s poverty forced him to start working at seven, herding animals.

Thankfully for future generations of naturalistic poets, Clare discovered James Thomson’s “The Seasons” in his teens, and this inspired him to begin writing poems and sonnets himself.

John Clare’s Family Home (Rodney Burton).

His first collection, “Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery” was published partially in desperation, because his parents were about to be evicted from their home. In a piece of luck, the local bookseller happened to be the cousin of the owner of a publishing firm who had earlier published the works of John Keats.

Clare’s book, backed by such a publisher of distinction, became a bestseller, and was followed by another book, “Village Minstrel and Other Poems”. Rustic poets were in vogue, and it brought him some celebrity in London, and wealthy patrons granted him the princely sum of £45 a year.

In addition to his rustic poems, he was also known for his sonnets, which in part popularized a different structure from the more usual Shakespearian or Petrarchan forms.

I LOVE TO SEE THE SUMMER
by John Clare

I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north
I love to see the wild flowers come again
And mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lillies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes
I like the willow leaning half way o’er
The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore
I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and insects happy wings
That sport about the meadow the bright day
And see bright beetles in the clear lake play

This type of sonnet has come to be known as a Clarian sonnet, and is composed of seven sequentially rhymed couplets – aa bb cc dd ee ff gg – in pentameter, or ten syllables per line.

This structure is what underpins my own poem, “When I Died”, which is a standalone work but also a companion piece to my poem “The First Deadly Sin” a blank-verse sonnet in the voice of a vampire. In “When I Died”, a Clarian sonnet, the victim responds.

John Clare Memorial (Richard Croft).

… And what became of John Clare? Alas, the fashion for rustic poets did not last, and Clare’s popularity faded. Clare’s financial troubles and struggles with his publishers placed him under enormous stress, and he was admitted to a mental asylum in High Beach, Epping, in 1837. After escaping from the asylum in 1841, he was admitted into Northamptonshire General Asylum. There he lived until the end of his days, continuing to write poetry as his health permitted.

Ironically, the asylum poems have come to be regarded as among his best known works.

—–

Contribute your Clarian Sonnet here… Please remember to say hi in the Comments, and explore other people’s poetry as well. Thank you!

This is the power of poetry! For me, the call to pick up my pen and write out my frustration with the world is strong. It is paramount to my sanity.  It allows me a voice. One where I can shout my opinions to the world (as misguided as they may be) and ideally, open up communication with like-minded folks the globe over. Those who disagree, need not read my words. They can turn the page, switch the screen, or maybe, if I’ve played my cards right, they can grab a pen and write their own poem in response.

No matter your beliefs, your opinions, your grievances, there is room for your words. Imagine a world where words are the true weapons (in my world…they are) The power you hold in the pen you bring each week is god-like. Cherish it, respect it, nurture it and open yourself to the gifts it can bestow upon you.

Just over a year ago, I never imagined I would find so many wonderful, thoughtful, colorful word benders.  I am constantly amazed and in awe of the absolute talent that fills these virtual pub walls.  If I could bring you all under my wing to allow you the ability to write to your heart’s desire, I would do it in a New York Minute.

Poets, the world needs your words now more than ever. Know your worth, and never let doubt shadow your pages.  There was a time in our history when each and every one of you would have been revered above all…that hasn’t changed for me, and I’ve got a feeling, it’s the same for many who visit us each week.

Can you feel that…that tug on your heart…don’t panic…it’s just the poem you were born to write!

So let’s do this, shall we?  Here’s how:

• Post your poem to your blog. This is a free write. No prompt, no form, just a call for your words.
• Copy your post link.
• Click on our Mr.Linky button. Here you will be prompted to paste your post address, enter your name, and click submit. You are in! (If Mr. Linky has already pulled a previous post for you, simply backspace to delete and then paste in the appropriate post)
• Now the fun begins! Revisit Mr. Linky to search out other poets who have answered the call. Visit their links, commenting when compelled.
• We are community! We share, we tweet, we thumbs-up, and pin it! Use whatever social networking platform you favor to help spread the PoetLove!